Jury selection expected to take days, trial expected to last months
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The corruption trial for former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan began last week.
Madigan had been indicted on federal racketeering and bribery charges as a part of what federal prosecutors call "the Madigan enterprise," where they say he allegedly committed crimes for his personal gain and that of his political allies.
The blockbuster trial is expected to take several months.
Check back with ABC7 Chicago for live updates.
Jury selection will begin this week in the corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, whose half-century career and status as Illinois' most powerful politician ended nearly four years ago as the feds circled ever-closer to his inner circle.
Madigan was once considered the most powerful politician in Illinois, serving as House speaker for a total of 36 years. The 82-year-old ex-speaker faces bribery and racketeering charges - along with his longtime friend and powerful Springfield lobbyist Mike McClain - in a case that frames Madigan's power in government, politics and as a partner in his law firm as a criminal enterprise.
The trial, which is scheduled to last through mid-December, is the culmination of more than a decade of digging by the FBI and prosecutors, and it's the final in a series of related cases that have played out in Chicago's federal courthouse over the last few years.
Opening statements in the case are likely to begin on Tuesday, Oct. 15, though Blakey this week said jury selection should take as long as it needs. The trial is scheduled through Dec. 13.
The court has selected the 12th juror on Thursday.
Now, they will move on to select alternate jurors. By noon the judge announced they selected their first alternate.
Judge Robert Blakey said if they don't finish today, they will wrap it up and begin opening statements on Monday.
There will be no court on Friday.
There's more jury selection on tap Thursday at the federal trial of Mike Madigan.
No new jurors were selected Tuesday or Wednesday.
Seven more are needed.
In addition to the 11 jurors who have slowly already been chosen, one final jury member must survive challenges, plus six alternates.
The jury that will determine the fate of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is nearly complete after three slow days of jury selection last week.
But, in addition to the 11 jurors who have already been chosen, one final jury member must survive challenges, plus six alternates - a larger number than other recent federal corruption trials, owing to the length of Madigan's.
Jury selection continues Tuesday, after the trial took a break for the holiday weekend.
U.S. District Judge Robert Blakey has repeatedly told the attorneys they should take whatever time they need. But he has also warned the pace would delay the trial one week beyond its original 10-week schedule. On Friday, Blakey and the attorneys agreed that opening statements would be pushed to Monday, Oct. 21.
So far, the jury pool has been overwhelmingly white, though the jurors selected are a more diverse group of eight women and three men. The jury so far includes a teacher, an Amazon warehouse worker, an overnight nurse and a Goodwill donation center employee.
The Goodwill employee, who was chosen Friday, told attorneys she's considering moving out of Illinois because she didn't want to continue raising her son in Chicago due to violence and the cost of living.
The jury will also include a woman who said that when she told her best friend about her jury summons, the friend predicted that she was being called for the Madigan case - and told her to "vote guilty" for the former Democratic House speaker.
"She's a Trumper," the juror said of her friend, referring to her support for former President Donald Trump. "She really hates all Democrats except me, maybe."
Prosecutors and attorneys for Madigan and McClain have already agreed to dismiss dozens of prospective jurors based on their answers to a lengthy questionnaire they filled out earlier this week. Many of those dismissals were made because the jurors couldn't commit to the full trial, though a number of them were nixed because their questionnaire answers expressed animus toward politicians in general or Madigan in particular.
While some prospective jurors who made it to the questioning in the courtroom had heard of Madigan or remembered seeing something about the charges in the news, many had never heard his name.
One juror told attorneys that he'd grown up in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood and was even familiar with a parking lot that will factor into the trial when prosecutors present evidence about a proposed hotel project in that neighborhood. Prosecutors allege Madigan improperly accepted former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis' offer to direct property tax work for the project to Madigan's law firm in exchange for an appointment on a state board for Solis, though neither the appointment nor the hotel project ever panned out.
On his questionnaire, the potential juror also wrote the words "scandal" and "fraud" in association with Madigan and said that he'd remembered a history teacher in high school speaking negatively about the former speaker, though he claimed to be "neutral" about Madigan now.
After 45 minutes of questioning, Blakey ultimately booted the potential juror, siding with defense attorneys' concerns about his preconceived notions.
Though some prospective jurors who were questioned in the courtroom said they were casual consumers of news, many expressed apathy or even disinterest about current events and politics. Others were unclear on the concept of lobbying and believed it to be illegal.
- ABC7 Chicago contributed
Opening statements are now expected to begin next Thursday at the earliest in former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's corruption trial.
Attorneys and the federal judge presiding over the case previously hoped opening statements could begin Tuesday, but jury selection has been slow-going.
